Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio
Volta was born in Como, Lombardy, Italy, on February 18,
1745. His parents sent him to a Jesuit school with the
intention that he would become a jurist, but he chose the
sciences instead.

In 1774 Volta became professor of
physics at the Royal School in Como. His passion had
always been the study of electricity, and in 1775 he
devised the electrophorus, a device that produced charges
of static electricity. The device soon superseded the
Leyden Jar as the most commonly used method of storing
electricity. The electrophorus consisted of a metal plate
coated with a substance called ebonite, and a second
metal plate with an insulated handle. Holding the metal
plate by the insulated handle above the charged ebonite,
Volta found that the negative charge in the ebonite
attracted a positive charge in the lower surface of the
plate, leaving a negative charge in its upper surface.
Volta also found that this negative charge could be
drained away by means of a metal wire connecting the
upper surface of the plate to the earth, leaving an
overall positive charge on the plate. By repeating the
process, he built up large quantities of positive charge.
Today the electrophorus is the basis of the condenser,
the device used for storing electricity in electric
currents.

ldiagram of Volta's electrophorus

Volta's electrophorus

Applying himself to chemistry between
1776 and 1777, Volta studied the chemistry of gases,
discovered methane, and devised experiments such as the
ignition of gases by an electric spark in a closed
vessel.

In 1779 Volta became professor of
physics at the University of Pavia, a position he held
for the next 25 years. In 1794 he married Teresa
Peregrini, daughter of Count Ludovico Peregrini, with
whom he raised three sons.

The Voltaic Pile with which Volta is
most commonly associated was developed by him in 1800, as
the result of a professional disagreement over the
galvanic response advocated by Luigi
Galvani. Galvani had found that
if two different metals were brought into contact in the
presence of animal muscles, an electric current was
generated. Galvani believed that the current was a kind
of "animal electricity" contained in the tissue
and released by the touch of the metals. Volta, however,
believed it should be possible to generate the current
without the tissue, and began a series of experiments to
test his hypothesis. He eventually determined that the
most effective pair of dissimilar metals to produce
electricity was copper and zinc. This led to the first
working battery, which used several bowls of a salt
solution connected by a wire cord that dipped from one
bowl into the next. One end of the cord was copper and
the other zinc and when they made contact, a current was
produced. The Voltaic Pile replaced this rather unwieldy
apparatus by using a series of small round plates of
copper and zinc. Each pair of dissimilar metal plates was
kept apart by a cardboard disk soaked in salt water.
Voltaic Piles became the first convenient source of
electric current, and led directly to the discovery of
the phenomenon of electrolysis and enabled rapid progress
to be made in the study of the laws governing
electricity.

drawing of Volta's 'battery'

a Voltaic Pile on display at the
Volta Temple in Como

In honor of his work in the field of electricity, Napoleon
Bonaparte made him a Count in 1810. In 1815, the
Emperor of Austria named him a professor of philosophy at
Padova. Five volumes of Volta's works were published in
1816, in Florence.

Volta retired from his work in 1819,
and died in Como on March 5, 1827.

The Tempio Voltiano, near Lake
Como, is a museum devoted to explaining Volta's work; his
original instruments and papers are on display there. The
building, along with Volta's portrait, appeared on the
Italian 10.000 lira banknote until introduction of the
euro. The volt, a unit of electrical potential,
was officially named in his honor in 1881. Volta Crater
on the Moon is named in his honor.

PRINT SOURCE
Anthony Feldman and Peter Ford. Scientists
& Inventors, The People Who Made Technology from
Earliest Times to Present Day. New York:
Facts on File, 1979